his
grosser excrement consisted chiefly of a sandy substance, as if the
devoured stones had been in his body dissolved, and crumbled into sand.
And indeed this memorable story seems to argue that a natural Menstruum
appertaining to the human body, but not so corrosive as to fret the
same, may dissolve Stones, Metals, and other compact substances."
"
Since I have observ'd it to be the main thing that keeps judicious men
from seeking, or so much as hoping to discover, noble dissolvents, that
they are scarce to be persuaded that there can be considerably piercing
Menstruums that are not proportionably corrosive to the bodily tissues,
I will here acquaint you with a Liquor that may, I presume, assist you
to undeceive some of these men. We take then ordinary Household Bread
(I like that of Rye ; but I have divers times us'd that of Wheat), and
when it is cut into slices, and somewhat dryed, we almost fill a glass
retort with it; and placing that in a Sand furnace ; by degrees of fire
we draw off what will be made to come over without much difficulty. The
Oyl, as useless to our purpose, being by a Filter separated from the
rest of the Liquor ; we also by a gentle heat free the Spirit from some
of its phlegm, which yet sometimes we find no great necessity to do.
And still this Spirit, which you will easily believe is no such
Corrosive as Aquafortis, or other distill'd Liquors of Mineral Salts,
will work upon the hardest sorts of bodies, and perform things that
Chemists, counted of the judiciousest, would not have us expect from the
most sharp, and corrosive Menstruums now in use. For with this we have
in a short time, and that in the cold, drawn tinctures, not only from
crude Corals, and some of the more open Minerals, but likewise from
